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Healing vs. Acceptance

How can healing and ‘being in acceptance’ go together? I am unable to understand the connection between them. I feel that the term ‘healing’ is used when we want to change something which is uncomfortable at present and is therefore not acceptable.

On the other hand we also use the phrase ‘balancing of energies at all levels - physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, karmic etc.’ when we are not sure of the cause of the problem. Please explain how 'balancing' works automatically when we are in acceptance of things. In that case do we need any additional healing method?

The above were asked in an email and this post is the result.

The underlying belief systems need to be understood before justice can be done to these wonderful queries.

It is also important to understand the energy of the phrase “to heal” itself and the one who has asked the questions is spot on in this.

It does mean ‘to fix something that is not right’. The energy of non-acceptance is obviously embedded in it.

* * * *

Fact:

All systems of treatment have their share of successes and failures. Chances are that medications that work like magic for one do not get comparable results for others. Ditto that for alternative therapies. All patients with identical problems do not get similar results.

Why?

The common factor is that the CONSCIOUSNESS of the individual being treated is NOT being addressed in ANY form of treatment be it allopathic, homeopathy, ayurveda or alternative therapies like Reiki, Crystal etc.

In order to understand why certain individuals get cured and others do not, we need to factor in the individual Consciousness too.

Consciousness is nothing but the belief systems. We will be able to understand why healing happens and also why it does not happen once the Consciousness aspect is studied in detail.

By touching on this, I am also trying to address the basic question which should be at the back of the minds of most Reiki healers and that is, ‘Why Reiki works and why, at times, it does not seem to work?’

So, before we get there, we need to examine the belief systems – some of which we are born with while others are acquired during the current lifetime.

* * * *

Basically there are two common belief systems from the perspective of physical health:

A)Others will Fix me, i.e. take care of all my ailments.

B)Others can help but I also need to do something for myself.

I will take up these two broad categories one by one.

Others will Fix Me

Humans who have this belief system embedded deep within their consciousness may also have the knowledge that their health will improve if they were to incorporate regular exercise, morning walk, yoga etc. Yet this remains an intellectual concept as they are unable to translate this into actual practice. The underlying belief system is that ‘others’ will fix me whenever something goes wrong with my physical body. The focus is on the body alone and not on the mind or the spirit.

Depending on the experiences that they have ‘chosen’ (will discuss this separately) in the current life, there is the possibility that this belief system does work for them. Others – allopathic doctors, homeopaths, Reiki healers, Pranic healers, Crystal healers, Chakra setting experts etc. – are indeed able to help them when things go wrong.

But the potential exists that others might not be able to make them better.

* * * *

So when things don't go as planned, this can then lead to two situations:

a) They are stuck with their problems/ailments for the rest of the current lifetime.

OR

b) Depending on the new choices made, they may acquire newer belief systems and move forward in life.

Others can help but I also need to do something for my health

At the basic level, the humans (with this new belief system) might start going for morning walks or learn yoga, pranayama etc. and incorporate these lifestyle changes.

Again there are two potentials:

a)Either their health improves because of their changed lifestyles.

OR

b) It does not because the health issues are of a chronic nature and not likely to improve with physical exercise alone.

These issues now need the Mind-Body link to be addressed.

If the individuals who are striving to do something for themselves are open-minded, they may end up attending the so called New Age workshops and learn Reiki, Crystals, Pranic Healing etc.

They may also learn about their own thought patterns that are contributing to their state of ill health and go about changing the destructive ones. Life becomes a journey of learning, evolving and becoming better.

This all depends on the choices made in the current life time.

But what if the minds are closed and rigid? In the sense that the belief system now is, “Others might need to work on their inner selves but everything is absolutely fine as far as I am concerned.”

Healing / working with such humans is indeed a tough ask and often does not work. They are stuck with their physical ailments for life in spite of their new practices of Reiki, yoga, meditation, pranayama etc. More often than not, one physical ailment leads to another. Additionally they do have lots of stories about how they have been mistreated by everyone and everything in life.

Good human beings but having loads of physical problems which could have become better only if they were open to change!!

The basic issue is that they are not ready to learn the core lessons hidden behind the problems in life. They keep on attracting problems one after the other, some of them repeatedly so that they can learn the lessons.

Till such time that it is time to move on. I have heard that they are born again with the same set of problems all over again. I do not know whether this is true or not but the thought itself is a bit scary. Indeed!

Learning and Evolving Because of the Negative in Life

The humans who have understood that they need to-do-something might also have by now learnt that any kind of stress can potentially create chronic physical ailments of one kind or the other.

Issues linked to relationships, abundance, self-worth, professional and material success and even those of spiritual growth now come into focus. This is because stresses can potentially exist in all of these aspects about life considered individually or collectively.

The attention therefore shifts from the physical to everything else in life.

The journey that started from taking care of the physical health alone now has the potential to become one of transforming all aspects in life – especially the ones where stresses already exist.

New experiences are now attracted in line with the changing belief systems. The persons on this path continue learning more and more about their internal worlds. This again is linked to the experiences that are chosen in the current lifetime.

It can become an extended journey of sorts as is of the one who asked the questions that catalysed these posts. He learnt Reiki back in 1998-99 (if memory serves me right) and these questions reveal that he is still seeking. This obviously is the experience that he has chosen in this life. He also must have got some positive results with Reiki, Crystals, positive thinking etc. which would have provided the necessary fuel and motivation for him to keep going for as long as he seems to have done.

But these questions also carry the energy that there are still some issues that he could rather be without. There is still this ‘desire’ that he needs to do something more in addition to whatever he has been doing for his physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well-being.

* * * *

The Humans who are Doing-Something

There are several layers within this category of humans who are doing-something in addition to seeking help elsewhere. As already pointed out, the focus is now on overall peace-of-mind and not physical health alone.

The list below gives a general idea about the most prevalent belief systems but is in no way complete.

•I need to exercise, do yoga, pranayama regularly for my physical well being.

•Mind and Body go together. If there is something wrong with my physical body, then I need to work on my thought patterns too.

•Positive thinking is needed for my body to become healthier. Positive affirmations are the mantras that I need to keep on repeating to change the debilitating thoughts for all the problems that are there in my life.

•Creative visualizations are wonderful as I can magnetise anything I want in my life.

•I need to watch what I eat as food is the root cause of all my physical problems. Maybe, I will attend a naturopathy workshop!

•I need to fix my chakras and clear the blockages in all my energy channels (nadis) etc. in order to become healthier. I need to change my thoughts that have caused these blockages in the first place.

•I think the solutions lie in ‘The Secret’. I will watch it again and again.

•The problems that I have are due to Imbalances in the Relationships, Abundance and Self-worth aspects of my life and are directly affecting me at my Physical, Emotional, Mental and Spiritual levels. So the solutions lie in ‘Balancing the energies at all these levels’. Once the energies get balanced, all the problems will be resolved.

As I said, many more can be added to this list ...

* * * *

Now, all the above can be the belief systems of different groups of people or of the same individual at various stages in life.

Please also understand that depending on the experiences chosen, the belief-system of the moment might be working beautifully. This means that the problems are being taken care of by applying the technique of the moment.

Now what would the general tendency of such humans be? The current technique is working beautifully for them, isn’t it? They naturally start advocating ‘it’ to whosoever will listen as well as to the ones who will not listen. They stress upon the fact that how it has helped them and that they too should start following/doing it. They might even ‘force’ them to go to this particular teacher or that Guru. Their life has changed, hasn’t it?

But are the matching belief systems in place? This is something that needs to be examined seriously before ‘pushing’ someone on the path that seems to be working for you. Yes there are chances are that it may work. But then it may not.

At times, there is the potential for individuals to get stuck with one technique and then giving it up if it works for a little while and then stops giving the results.

There is also the potential for individuals to jump from one therapy to the other with the hope that the newer one might bring them better results.

The ones who benefit may just end up writing books about their experiences extolling the virtues of the particular systems / techniques / therapies that have done wonders in their lives. Or, they might even start sharing their experiences in a blog :) hoping that others also do what they are doing!!

The down side is that the ones who do not get the promised results are left wondering as to what's wrong with them.

The bottom line is that humans will continue seeking till they find what they are looking for or till sheer frustration / death forces them to give up. Or they may not!

The intense desire to change something that is not-acceptable-in-life provides the motivation and the fuel that is needed to continue searching.

Fact:

The fact is that majority of humans today are confused.

If we take the example of diet-plans, there are so many of them that no one is sure which one is going to work.

Continuously being bombarded with messages especially over the TV by so many different spiritual gurus has added to the chaos.

If we look back at the journey of all humans, we have continuously been discovering newer techniques / therapies / mantras / methods for improving our state for aeons of time now.

Each and every system / method / technique must have yielded positive results for them to be accepted and become popular in the first place.

The fact that we are still searching should also tell us something; that all techniques do not work for everyone. There is the possibility that they are no longer having the effect that they used to have.

What happens when we hit a wall?

Generally, we throw in the towel, so to say, generally with a negative acceptance. In the sense that the individual starts believing that it is the Karma, fate, destiny that somehow can not be changed as it is not in my hands. Feeling powerless is not a good feeling; knowing that you are a kind of a puppet, even worse.

There is this underlying belief system which says that we are the masters of our destiny. However, the negative in life forces us to believe that we are not and that there is some invisible power controlling everything in the universe.

We end up having plenty of conflict within!! Stress? You bet!

This belief that there is a supreme God controlling everything was acceptable to humans who walked on earth as recently as 30-40-50 years ago and majority of humans will continue believing this. But this is really not palatable to the free thinkers and the human beings who believe that they can change their future. But when nothing seems to work, then we are forced to accept these thoughts which do tend to take the joy out of life.

While all this is going on, there will continue to be humans who keep on believing that their local physician is God for them as he can still take care of all their physical ailments. And if he does not, then it is their karma and so nothing can be done about it and so all is well.

They are the ones at peace…

* * * *

Please understand that there are no absolute answers as there is no absolute truth. The answers are according to the consciousness of the individual concerned and evolve over time. It is not that what was believed earlier was a lie. That was also true. The new truth does not make the earlier ‘truth’ a ‘lie’.

I will elaborate this with my personal experiences of several shifts in my own consciousness.

Till about 1989-90, my belief system was that I need to go to a doctor for each and every physical ailment. At that time, I used to get severe headaches for which the only cure was to pop a pill, apply an ointment like the movie stars and sports persons do on TV and go to bed. These methods worked and I believed that I was getting healed.

Till such time that the ointments, the balms and the pills stopped having the effect that they used to have.

Now the choice was either to continue living life with these headaches or look for the answers elsewhere. Fortunately, the second solution happened to me. We moved to Ahmedabad from Delhi in 1991 and the intensity and the frequency of the headaches diminished.

The Mind-Body link sank into my consciousness only after going through this experience in life. It was now obvious that the stresses linked to living in Delhi had been causing these headaches. My belief system changed and my consciousness expanded directly as a result of the negative experience.

After that I started looking for ways to take care of the day-to-day stresses. This is when yoga, pranayama and meditation helped me. I discovered that I did not need to depend on medicines alone for routine problems like headaches.

Learning Reiki, Crystal therapy and Pranic healing was the next obvious step as the stresses were now because of the health of our daughters. Being able to help them for most of their childhood health situations – coughs, colds and other minor ailments without the aid of medications was a big thing. I have nothing against medicines but if the ailments could be taken care of without them, then why not?

As my faith and trust in the so called alternative systems grew (which by the way is a misrepresentation of facts – these are complementary and not alternative), there came a desire to bring about other changes too within my own life.

There also was this desire to get 100% results with all who came seeking my help as I had a small ‘healing’ practice going by then. Because of my new belief systems, I found that I was invariably looking for the Mind-Body link while dealing with all cases of physical ailments.

This is where I got stuck.

At that time I did not know anything about how the consciousness of individuals could have a direct bearing on the results in any healing situation. I obviously was not able to help everyone who came to my door seeking my help. This was pretty frustrating and the ego also took a bit of beating every time positive results did not manifest.

I also was unable to deal with a few personal issues in a consistent manner. These included the ability to add weight almost effortlessly and lack of abundance no matter what I did. I also discovered that the more I tried to change these situations, the more stuck they became. Some became worse from where I had started.

Rather than accepting it as being my destiny or my fate, I again set about looking for the answers to these problems that would not change with loads of Reiki/Crystal therapies. My attempts of trying to change my thought patterns were not yielding any kind of permanent results for these issues that were very close to me.

While the guides and the spiritual teachers tried their best to get me to accept this as my Karma, my attention was drawn again and again to the Soul aspect in the Body-Mind-Soul link.

I had heard this phrase several times before but had not really understood it till then. I had also heard that these need to be harmony but these were meaningless words which sounded good to the ears only.

If anyone will look at the list given above, it is obvious that most of the human attempts are directed at the Mind. It is Mind Control in one form of the other.

If it works, great! Too bad if it does not – it is your stupid karma, your bad luck that is at play.

In my case, it had worked for a bit of time and for a few situations. But it had become pretty frustrating for the real core issues.

At that time, I also heard that everything in my life was my own creation. This was rather difficult to digest especially for that which was negative in my life and therefore not acceptable. I had convenient scapegoats in the form of bad luck, relatives, God, enemies etc. to blame.

* * * *

The next major shift was because of an internal dialogue that happened in moments of sheer frustration. This opened up another gateway within.

I started thinking on the lines:

What if all this was right?

What if I had created the ‘negative’ in order to learn some deep and beautiful secrets?

What if the present negative in life had been created by a very wise soul so that I was able to create a better present and from there a grander future?

In a sense, I started accepting the fact that maybe I had created the negative in some previous lifetime in order to help me evolve in the present one.

I also discovered that some issues started shifting with this new way of thinking. The constant pressure in the head eased off a bit.

This is when I discovered that ALL ‘problems’ in life were really not problems-to-be-healed/fixed but rather ‘Gifts’ that I had given myself in this life.

I also noticed that once I became aware about these and as I came more and more into acceptance of all things as they were in my life, these very situations started changing.

Earlier, as long as I was fighting these issues by trying ‘to heal’ them or rather ‘fix them’ there was the potential for them to become more rigid and stronger. It was at that time that I had understood the universal principle of ‘Whatever you resist; persists.’

It is over a period of time that I have come into total Acceptance of everything that is in life, especially the Negative. With total acceptance comes the understanding that nothing needs to be fixed.

What happens then? With this new consciousness, the body does not need to live with the physical ailments for as long as it normally would. The lessons have been learnt, you see.

The most difficult part for me was the initial phase. I knew within that I had to accept this situation for it to be resolved. The alternative was to become dependent on pain killers etc., a thought that I did not relish at all. I knew deep within that I had given myself this experience in order to learn some deeper lessons.

There was also the knowingness that these lessons WILL NOT be revealed till such time that I was fighting the situation; till such time that I was wishing for the pain to go away; till such time that I did not come to terms with the THOUGHT that I will live the rest of my life with pain-in-my-leg IF IT DID COME TO THAT.

There is also the fact that I (now) believe that taking medications (pain killers etc.) is equivalent to trying to remove something that is there in the first place to help me in my life.

So while my mind was trying to deal with it, at some level there was this knowingness that all I had to do was 'not-deal' with it. The situation changed rapidly as I made it an integral part of my existence.

There is another situation of blood sugar in my life. I am operating from a different consciousness and do understand that my well-wishers are operating from another place. (This does not make me better in any way) So when they want me to do something like take medicines to bring it under 'control', I do understand their concern. But here I am learning to let go of all controls. I know that there are a few lessons there that still need to be revealed. But I also know that these will not see the light of day till such time that I am 'resisting the situation even in the tiniest way.

The weird thing is that the lessons are revealed when you least expect them.

My consciousness now is that I am not trying to fix anything in life. Acceptance ultimately is total surrender to all that is in life. Apparently, there still is a bit that I need to do for the blood-sugar situation. I know that once I reach that state of mind all my excess weight – I know I am judging here – will shed itself. Blood sugar will also become what it should be. Maybe not!

* * * *

This brings me back to the second part of the query.

What does ‘Accepting All Things as They Are’ really mean?

Does it mean doing nothing or does it mean that we can do some healing along with it?

'Accepting All Things as They Are' in a way does mean 'not doing anything'. On the other hand, it can also lead to a lot of ‘doing’.

I know this answer is going to confuse many as there are no direct answers. It all depends on the consciousness of the individual who is contemplating these questions.